Sher puts portraits of stage stars on display

Sir Anthony Sher is one of the greatest living Shakespearean actors, a leading stage director and prolific author.

But his collection of portraits depicting himself and other theatrical stars are less well known.

Indeed, his pieces - which include pictures of Sir Ian McKellen as Iago in an RSC production of Othello, John Malkovich, Harriet Walter, Sir Tom Stoppard, Brian Cox and Paul Scofield - have never been shown. Until now.

The Evening Standard Theatre and Film Awards winner was persuaded to put his art on public display by Christie's art historian Patrick Bade.

Sir Antony said: "I haven't really been comfortable about showing much of my art in public. Until this exhibition, many of the subjects wouldn't even know that I've painted them."

The show also includes family portraits and scenes from his childhood in South Africa. Selfportraits include Sir Antony as drag queen Arnold in Torch Song Trilogy, Primo Levi in Primo and Shakespearean roles Richard III, Iago and the Fool in King Lear.

Most striking of all is his triptych The Male Line, which features his father's ashes, a grotesque Oscar and traces of cocaine from a drug habit that he gave up in the mid-Nineties.

Sir Antony said: "It reflects a bad time in my life where a cocaine dependency nearly wrecked me. Art provided an individual way to turn it around."

The exhibition is at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, Hampstead, until 18 March